Arch. Zeno Pucci - Translated by Susan Glasspool
Santiago Calatrava at Palazzo StrozziFlorence celebrates the autumn with an exhibition on the complete artistic cycle of work by Santiago Calatrava that opens in Palazzo Strozzi in September. The main theme of the show is the relationship between architecture and sculpture, art and engineering. The content sums up CalatravaÕs vision as a complete artist, expressed and experimented in various forms that are then used and exploited to the utmost. Thus, in the dawn of the new millennium, CalatravaÕs work comes from the formal experimentation and development of structural ideas that are conceived and tested through his sculpture, just as the great sculptors and architects of the Renaissance, like Michelangelo or Sansovino, learned their trade by sculpting at the Medici Academy. The contemporary concept of the exhibition is also closely linked to the arrangement and structure of the Palazzo Strozzi itself, set right in the centre of Florence, for the Palace is a reminder of the time in which the arts were not divided, when creators integrated all the artistic and technical possibilities available to him in his work, simultaneously discovering and exploiting new fields. CalatravaÕs poetic and visually refreshing architecture blends technical skills with the archetypical images, where the movement and views of each work become unusual protagonists, thus creating a language of their own in the panorama of contemporary architecture. The original watercolours, miniature reproductions and photographs are treated, like the sculpture, as individual works of art. Calatrava designs and creates with watercolours and his studies of the human body in movement are later transformed into communication towers, bridges or buildings. Designer of contemporary monuments, one of his greatest creations is the recovery of a long forgotten type of architecture: bridges, like squares, seen as vital elements in town planning, that blend and link the entire fabric of the city together. The artist introduces movement in his architecture as though it were the real protagonist of his work. His creations open out to display interiors or close protective wings around buildings. Images and ideas fill the rooms of Palazzo Strozzi with the work of one of the most complete artists of our times. Calatrava - Sculptor, engineer, architect Florence, Palazzo Strozzi % 055.2625910. Hours: 10am-8pm - Entrance L. 7.000 (reduced tickets L.4.000). From September 27th to November 26th.
